Trade shows and exhibitions are all about making connections – networking. Whether that is meeting new people or strengthening existing relationships, your role is to engage with your industry’s media and deliver a story. Be confident with your messaging and prepared to tackle those off the cuff or sensitive questions. This takes practice and experience, but go prepped and you can make the right impression to get your business noticed by the media organisations who matter.
Here are our tips to help you optimise your media networking at that all-important event:
1. Spend time thinking about your introduction/icebreaker
This can be as simple as your name and what you do followed up by simple open questions – don’t forget to smile!
2. Make your time memorable
Consider describing what you do in a more interesting or memorable way, for example, if you specialise in marine environmental protection, you could say that you are “the guardians of the deep”.
3. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them
Think about how you can put them at ease (quickly find a common ground, i.e, Is this your first time at this event? Who in the industry do you both know?) and make them feel more comfortable about asking questions – this will help you to manage your nerves too.
4. Every connection is potentially valuable
Whether it’s school children you could inspire, a politician you could influence, or a journalist you could educate, every interaction should be treated as an opportunity to practice being interesting and engaging.
5. Prepare three open questions
Encourage engagement by preparing three open-ended questions which cover safe territory.
What happens when you get thrown a curve ball? Keep following for next blog on How to tackle those unwanted/unexpected questions.
Missed our blog on How to write an impactful Press Release – read it here.
This blog is part of our series Event Publicity: The Gold Standard.
For a FREE COPY OF OUR EVENTS GUIDE: THE GOLD STANDARD, please email lorraine@ec-pr.com
The clock is ticking and there’s less than 3 weeks to go until Infosecurity Europe 2017. So, you should be well on your way to developing your big news story for the show.
Once you’ve got your story, it’s vital that you follow a few golden rules to give your organisation the best possible chance of getting the journalist’s attention. You need to make sure your team has set aside some time to put in place, update or source the following essentials so that you can really make the most of the media profiling opportunity presented at Infosecurity Europe 2017:
1. Named media contacts:
All too often press releases never get to the intended recipient because they are sent to generic email addresses like news@publication.com. You need to have a ‘named’ contact to send your press release to because generic email addresses are rarely monitored at busy times, if at all. By personalising your email your organisation comes across as being far more switched on, thoughtful and interested. If you want a journalist to use your story shouldn’t you, at least, know their name?
2. A picture speaks volumes:
Good quality photography, or graphics, which bring your story to life can give you the edge over your competitors. This is because good images provide you with an opportunity to dominate the page and side-line other stories. Magazines prefer to receive images as Jpegs and PNG files so make it is easy for the publication to use your material by sending your images in this format. Images should be sent as attachments to the email, not pasted in to the body of the release.
3. Make it a headline worth reading:
The headline is going to be the first thing the journalist reads which means that it needs to be short, informative and attention grabbing. Remember, news editors will receive hundreds of emails a day – so don’t try and be clever, keep to the point and let the editor jazz them up if they think appropriate.
Three simple things that can provide you with significant marginal gains.
How to equip spokespeople to confidently engage with journalists
Requirement
The Mason Advisory Cybersecurity practice awareness campaign has delivered consistent brand visibility and as the campaign gathers momentum, there will be increased opportunity for its experts to engage with journalists. The task was to equip Mason Advisory’s cybersecurity practice spokespeople with the knowledge, skills and practical experience of being questioned by a journalist so that they could deliver an interesting, informed and compelling interview.
Plan
Spokespeople were provided with insight into how the media works, what journalists are looking for and the common bear traps to avoid. Each executive was then provided with a number of bespoke scenarios to practice with EC-PR playing the role of the journalist. The executives were filmed to add tension so that they could experience answering questions under pressure.
Outcome
“The Mason Advisory cybersecurity brand profile has grown significantly, with regular commentary in key press. Our straight talking, clarity of thought and problem solving credentials are communicated consistently. The recognition that our brand receives in the media ensures our consultants are considered as critical partners in a highly competitive market.”
Graeme Park
You’ve prepped your ice-breakers, the Press Releases are printed out and you’ve got your contacts details all programmed in your phone. Now to prepare for the unexpected. If a journalist happens to come by the stand unexpectedly or asks a...
If you’ve actioned Stages 1 & 2 in our last blog HOW TO BECOME AN INDUSTRY THOUGHT LEADER you will be smiling like a Cheshire Cat about the fine piece of valuable content you have in your possession. But how do you get it to be seen and heard by the...
Trade shows and exhibitions are all about making connections - networking. Whether that is meeting new people or strengthening existing relationships, your role is to engage with your industry’s media and deliver a story. Be confident with your messaging and...
Our bespoke media training provides you with the confidence and understanding to deliver an informative and interesting interview.
MEDIA TRAINING
Our bespoke media training provides you with the confidence and understanding to deliver an informative and interesting interview.
We design and deliver bespoke media training.
So when we introduce you to the most influential journalists in your sector, you can engage them with clarity and confidence.
“The workshop was very well designed and tailored to meet my specific needs. The feedback was particularly helpful as it gave me a clear understanding of the areas I need improvement.The training has given me the confidence to talk effectively to the media.”
Sujata Stead
Chief Executive Officer , Cambridge English
What we offer
Our bespoke media training workshop provides candidates with insight regarding how the media works and what journalists are looking for. It provides them with new skills to help them deal with difficult questions and shows them how to take control of challenging situations.
What is achieved
Each delegate undertakes practical exercises based on real life scenarios tailored specifically to their areas of expertise. This means that participants are operating in familiar territory and can focus on learning to manage the interview while building their confidence in a safe environment.
Valuable Feedback
Video analysis and group feedback is used to encourage debate and build confidence amongst participants.
Our workshop equips spokespeople to speak intelligently and appropriately in any given scenario that they are likely to find themselves in.
Trade shows and exhibitions are all about making connections - networking. Whether that is meeting new people or strengthening existing relationships, your role is to engage with your industry’s media and deliver a story. Be confident with your messaging and...
Emmett & Churchman Ltd is a private limited company registered in England and Wales.
Company Registration No. 10198832. Registered Offices: 5 Merlewood, Bracknell, UK, RG12 9PA.
Phase two: The Forge
Campaign planning
Once you have your strategy, we need to activate it by introducing it to the wider team, embedding it amongst stakeholders and making sure the available Marcomms tools are updated and aligned. There are six key tools in The Forge, which can be selected according to individual client needs:
An engagement programme ensures internal stakeholders understand and buy-in to new comms strategy by demonstrating how it will make their jobs easier/better/more productive
An audit of all Marcomms materials to make sure all the tools required to communicate with your target personas are updated or created and fully aligned.
Develop a messaging matrix to ensure that all Personas have collateral serving appropriate messages at each stages of the buying cycle.
Collaborate to design individual campaigns to achieve specific business objectives amongst target personas such as cross-sell, upsell, customer acquisition etc.
PESO modelling delivers integrated marcomms, extends reach and optimises investment. This helps to determine internal marketing team and external agency campaign deliverables.
Tailored media training ensures your spokespeople are equipped to engage effectively with the media and conduct themselves with confidence.
…and to complete the package here’s a summary of our PR delivery process – The Bee Hive.
The Bee Hive is all about creativity and delivery, intelligently and proactively performing. There are no new whiz bang tools – just careful, consistent and disciplined delivery, including:
Brilliant Ideas Bank – we create an engaging, on-strategy content calendar, ideas for thought leadership, white papers, comment & insights
Media relations – we build relationships on your behalf to identify, develop and place your stories
Event support – we deliver a structured package of activities to make your 2-day event last six months
Technical authorship – our writing is second to none. We will develop, place, interview experts, draft and gain approvals as part of the deal.
Press interviews – we develop, secure, brief experts, facilitate and follow up opportunities
All editorial writing – whether it’s releases, features, white papers, blogs or ad hoc content, we’ve got it covered.
Project management – meetings, admin, monthly ROI reporting. We’re methodical and love a good project report!
Evaluation – in order to improve campaign design and performance.
We take great pride in delivering CEOs and CMOs of tech companies with certainty through accountable, effective and thought-provoking PR consultancy, underpinned by a proven phased approach and a performance guarantee. Let’s engage.
The tangible outcome of the Messaging Lab is a fully-validated communication strategy which is aligned to your sales requirements including: a value proposition, segment prioritisation, target personas, positioning statements and messaging.
The Messaging Lab comprises a series of structured workshops and consultancy engagements that deliver actionable insights comprising:
Comms workshop
– focuses on developing and evidencing your value proposition, segmentation priorities and target personas.
This process hones your understanding of potential target segments in order to decide which ones to proactively address. It ensures we know who we are engaging with and why; better targeting reduces waste and promotes marketing/sales collaboration.
Messaging workshop
– concentrates on forming and refining your positioning statements and messaging.
This helps you to save time and money by providing focus and specificity, rigour protects reputation against false or loose claims and elevates the communication.
It ensures that compelling messaging is developed for every stage of the buying cycle for each persona with whom you wish to engage.
Validation
– Comms strategy research with external stakeholders
This ensures the strategy is the best it can be, peer feedback is considered and on-boarded or actively rejected. Several iterations of the comms strategy may follow to ensure the strategy fits and resonates both with external stakeholders and sales and marketing stakeholders.
